Slippery-elm tent



(No Model.) I

'D. J. NICHOLS 8: W. H. SHEPARD.

Y SLIP'PERY ELM TENT. No. 375,185. Patented Dec. 20, 1887.

LI LIfi IEEES I lr-{Ue'ru v M x m N. PETERS. Pholo-Lilhcgnpllcn Washmgtun, D. C. i

UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

DEVILLO J. NICHOLS AND WILLIAM H. SHEPARD, OF THREE RIVERS,

. MICHIGAN.

SLI PPERY-ELM TENT.

SPECIFICATION forming part; of Letters Patent No. 375,185, dated December 20, 1887.

Application filed February 19, 1887. Serial No. 228,272. (No model.)

To aZZ whom it may concern.-

Be it known that we, DEVILLo J. N IOHOLS and \VILLIAM H. SHEPARD, citizens of the United States, residing at Three Rivers, in the county of, St. Joseph and State of Michigan, haveinvented certain new and useful Improvements in Bougies; and wedo hereby declare the following to be a full, clear, and exact description of the invention, such as will enable others skilled in the art to which it appertains to make and use the same.

Our invention relates to tents or bougies, which are used in the practiceof medicine.

On account of the valuable medicinal properties of theinner lining of slippery-elm bark, this substance has been used for tents or bougies; and the prevailing custom has been to cut them out of pieces of bark of various thicknesses into sizes suitable for application, those of large diameter from thick pieces of bark and those of smaller diameter from thinner pieces. But this process is long and tedious and far fromsatisfactory, because the manner, but so that the quality will be uniform regardless of their length or thickness; and to this end our invention consists in the product more fully described hereinafter, and pointed out in the claims.

In the accompanying drawings, Figure 1 represents several strips of slippery-elm bark placed together prior to being compressed; Fig. 2, the strips or layers after they have been compressed into a solid mass, and Fig. 3 a completed bougie or tent made from the mass or blank after it has become hardened by drying.

In putting our invention into practice several pieces, a, of slippery-elm bark are moistened and placed one upon or alongside the other, so that the grain or fiber of the bark will have a common direction, and they are then subjected to a high degree of pressure. The natural gummy substance in the bark will make the layers or strips so strongly adhere that when the pressure is released a solid blank or mass is formed, and from this mass or block the tents or bougies are afterward cut out into various shapes and sizes, the form shown in Fig. 3 being preferred, the lines I) in this figure representing the junctions of the several layers.

The thick bougies now in use are made in one piece out of a single piece of bark, and therefore have such a coarse and woody fiber that they are slow in absorbing moisture and require a longer time to become moistened and flexible after being inserted in the patient than those made from the thinner fine-grained pieces.

By our method we select strips of that part of the bark which has the finest fiber and press them together into asolid blank, and afterward cut or turn therefrom bougies of a large diameter which will have as fine a texture and possessall the good qualities of the smallest and best bougies formerly made of a single piece of bark.

Having thus fully described our invention, what we c1aim,and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is- 4 y 1. As a new article of manufacture, a tent or bougie formed of layers or strips of slippery-elm bark compressed together in solidified form, substantially as described.

2. As a new article of manufacture, a tent or bougie formed of layers or strips of slippery-elm bark compressed together in solidified form, the grain of the several layers running in the same direction, substantially as described.

In testimony whereof we affix our signatures in presence of two witnesses.

DEVILLO J. NICHOLS. W'ILLIAM H. SHEPARD.

Witnesses:

WILLIAM O. PEALER, CHAS. W. Cox. 

